Coachella Valley Firebirds coach Dan Bylsma could hardly have imagined that his year-plus preparing Shane Wright for his first full NHL season would lead to him playing for new Seattle Kraken coach Dan Bylsma.
Both coach and player will be graduating to the Kraken this fall. Bylsma, taking over for fired coach Dave Hakstol, and Wright, ready to show off the skills which made him the 4th overall choice in the 2022 NHL Draft.
Since Wright joined the Kraken’s AHL farm team late in the 2022-23 regular season, he’s been under the tutelage of the then-Firebirds bench boss. That includes 32 games in ’22-’23 (eight regular season/24 playoffs) and 71 games in ’23-’24 (59/12).
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“What gets lost a little bit,” Bylsma said in a KIRO-AM interview, “We’re drafting 18 year old kids. There’s a lot of development and a lot of process they have to go through. When you were 18, you gotta go back and think about where you were at both physically and mentally.”
In the months after being drafted, the teen center shuttled between the NHL, World Juniors tournament, and two OHL teams, before finally landing in Coachella Valley. At every stop, he was reminded that he hadn’t gone first overall, as many expected, to the Montreal Canadiens.
“There’s outside expectations and pressures,” Wright acknowledged in a Toronto radio interview. “But at the end of the day, I have expectations on myself. That’s what I focus on, and just go about my business day-to-day. There’s a few exceptions, but you’re not going to be able to step in and make a difference at that young an age. It’s a process, to be ready for the opportunity when it comes.”
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The Burlington, Ontario native, who turned 20 in January, seized the opportunity for Bylsma’s Firebirds last season, scoring 22 goals and 47 points. He added 13 points in 12 postseason games.
“You continually see growth in him as a person and as a player throughout the last year, the maturation,” Bylsma said. “The good thing for Shane is that he got the chance to be a pro under some great leadership at Coachella – Max McCormick, Andrew Poturalski led the way showing Shane what it takes to be a pro.”
One thing Wright learned from veteran teammates was what to do – or more accurately, what to stop doing – after participating in Coachella’s back-to-back trips to the Calder Cup Final. “After two long playoff runs, and playing as long as we did, having some time off, letting your body rest and recover is huge. A lot of my teammates and coaches have talked about that. You have to give your body time to heal.”
Not for long, though. “Kinda getting back into training and back into skating (now); getting my body in shape and ready for training camp in September.”
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